SEATTLE – Two weeks since returning from the left wrist inflammation that forced him onto the injured list, Daulton Varsho is still trying to get back to “my normal swing.”
Though he’s feeling better, pain remains when his wrist bends back too far, which is why he why he wears a brace with a guard designed to limit such movement. Given the way his wrist shifts at launch and as he’s “laying my barrel into the zone and then staying through” a swing, that’s not exactly ideal for the centre-fielder.
“No, but it’s something I have to work with,” said Varsho. “Making adjustments, grinding through it, it’s feeling better. I don’t have as much pain, which is awesome. With the all-star break coming up, I don’t know if four days off is going to make it feel great, so it might be something I have to work through the rest of the season.”
Still, the reset period offered by the looming all-star break will be welcomed by a Toronto Blue Jays team beat up both physically and mentally so far, their trying season extended by an 11-0 thumping from the Seattle Mariners.
Shane Bieber gave up five two-out runs in the second highlighted by Randy Arozarena’s grand slam during another uneven outing while Logan Gilbert diced up the lineup with perfect-game calibre stuff, allowing only one hit in 7.1 innings with seven strikeouts.
Given how thin the rotation is, Bieber’s status looms large after missing the first half of the season with elbow inflammation. The Blue Jays activated him from the injured list June 22 knowing he would need to finish his build-up at the big-league level, but the seven runs he allowed in 4.2 innings makes it 13 earned runs in 13.2 innings with six homers against over three starts.
Beginning with Sunday’s rubber match against the Mariners, when Trey Yesavage starts against Emerson Hancock, the Blue Jays have a week of games remaining, and at 42-47, they understand the need to make up ground before the pause.
“You can’t lay low, you’ve got to push forward and have good games like we did (Friday) night and keep putting pressure on teams,” said Varsho, who went 0-for-2 before coming out of the game in the seventh once Seattle had run up the score. “We’ve got to make our push because if we don’t, we’re going to get stuck behind a couple of other teams. This is a big series against Seattle, it means something down the road if we’re tied for the wild-card, so we’ve got to fight really well against these teams.”
Manager John Schneider has been preaching a similar message through this period, when players feel the toll of the first three-plus months of the season and must fight through the temptation to think about the break as it approaches.
“We’ve talked about this – you don’t want to fall into the trap of saying, let’s just get to the break. If you do that, you lose sight on what you’re trying to do,” said Schneider, who is stressing two areas of priority.
“One is getting the rotation back on a turn and a half through of some good starts, five, six, seven innings, setting up the bullpen. And, two, really trying to continue to grind an offensive approach day-in and day-out. If that turns into two runs, great, you’re taking positives from each day and just stacking those up. I always say we’re trying to win every series. I know wins are very, very important, but I think taking the little things from every day and really trying to move those on to the next day is important, too. And starters and offence is what I always go to.”
Neither went to plan Saturday, as they lost for the eighth time in 11 games, but fell for the first time in a game they didn’t have a chance to win. Their recent 3-7 homestand could easily have been reversed with a hit here, a pitch there, but the inconsistencies on that front have been a constant all season long, right alongside the stream of injuries.
That’s why their longest win streaks are a pair of four-gamers, while they’ve twice lost six straight games.
“It’s been frustrating for most guys,” said Varsho. “We’ll pitch well and play good defence and then we won’t hit. Like, something’s always off. We haven’t really hit our stride with everything in every single game, where we put together our win streak. But overall, if you look at the games we’ve played, there are some good things we do in a lot of games, so we can take a little bit from those. But our consistency has to come out to where we’re doing everything right, and we’re putting ourselves in a good spot to win that day.”
At this point there’s little solace for the Blue Jays knowing the way they took off in June last season, or that past teams, like the 2015 club, took off after the trade deadline.
Each group faces its own dynamics and must find “your identity, whatever it is,” said Varsho.
“We know we put the ball in play a lot. We don’t strike out much. We need to walk a little bit more, hit a couple more homers and we’ll be where we need to be, allowing ourselves to get our A swings off early on in the count instead of trying to put the ball in play,” he continued. “We know that when it comes down to two strikes, we can do that. … We know we work elite pitchers hard, and we push them to their limits. When we face the threes, fours and fives, we’ve got to do more damage in those games.”
Schneider describes that balance as being centred in approach.
“We’re not telling guys to go up there and walk – teams are coming after us because they know we put the ball in play,” he explained. “So it is being really, really stubborn with an area where you can hit the ball hard and not budging until you get to two strikes. When you’re doing that, you’re dictating the at-bat and chasing the pitcher out of those zones and that’s where walks come into play. If you continue to do that, hopefully you clip one or two with some guys on, like we did at home, and that’s the key. The walks are one thing we talk about a lot, if you’re not slugging, you’ve got to get some traffic and either slug or move the line down with some contact.”